Page:Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home (Volume 1).djvu/120

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LONDON.
117

manded a larger fee than we paid. H. called after us to be sure and give the fellow no more. The fellow knew his quarry; he mounted on the coach, and kept with us through a long street, demanding and entreating with alternate insolence and abjectness. He got the shilling, and then returning to the homage of his station, "Do you sit quite comfortable, ladies?" he asked, in a sycophantic tone. "Yes." "Thank you." "Would not Miss —— like better this seat?" "No." "Thank you." Again I repeat it, it is not the civility I object to. I wish we had more of it in all stations; but it is the hollow sound, which conveys to me no idea but the inevitable and confessed vassalage of a fellow-being.

I am aware that the sins we are not accustomed to are like those we are not inclined to, in the respect that we condemn them heartily and en masse. Few Englishmen can tolerate the manners of our tradespeople, our innkeepers, and the domestics at our public houses. A little more familiarity with them would make them tolerant of the deficiencies that at first disgust them, and after a while they would learn, as we do, to prize the fidelity and quiet kindness that abound among our servants without the expectation of pecuniary reward; and they would feel that it is salutary to be connected with this large class of our humble fellow-creatures by other than sordid ties.

If I have felt painfully that the men and women of what is called "good society" in America are